Told You So
by The-Lady-Isis
Summary: She's been looking forward to this night for a long time, with a sort of mingled anticipation and dread. One-shot, I don't own, review please.


**A/N: WARNING: angst ahead. Much angst. And I guessed at Terry's age by _Epilogue_. **

**Told You So**

She's been looking forward to this night for a long time, with a sort of mingled anticipation and dread.

The cemetery is empty, but then it's three am, and that's to be expected. Even during the day it would be, since the people of Gotham have moved on now, this little patch of tradition faded into obscurity. She does a quick fly-over anyway, just to make sure, though by this point it wouldn't matter if the whole world knows who she's here to see. Finally, seeing the coast is clear, she lands in front of the right grave.

"I told you so," she says, her voice a whisper lost on the breeze. But that doesn't matter. He'll hear.

So does someone else. "Told him what?"

She doesn't jump, though she didn't know he was there. Of course she hadn't seen him. Old habits die hard. She looks back at the grave, hearing his voice. _Or sometimes not at all._ She chuckles, not turning around. "Hello, Terry."

There's the sound of tentative, shuffling footsteps. Age is relentless. "How are you?" the eighty-five year old asks.

"Just as well as I ever was," she smiles. "And you?"

He rustles in a pocket of his coat for a moment, then pulls out a photograph of a chubby, screaming baby. "Dana and I just became great-grandparents."

She hands the picture back, noting the care with which he stows it back in its place. "Congratulations. She's beautiful."

"Her name is Elizabeth."

"That's a pretty name."

"Why are you here?" he asks.

"Don't you know?"

He never had much patience – considering who his father was that is not surprising – but age has apparently stripped the last of it. His voice grows harsher. "If I knew I wouldn't be asking."

There's a silence for a minute or two. Then: "It's his hundred and fiftieth birthday," she tells him softly. "And I've loved him for one hundred and twenty-seven of those years." A shrug of smooth, pale shoulders. "And I just came to tell him that."

"He loved you too," Terry replies, not sure how she'll take that after the last time.

She takes it better than she did at his funeral. She smiles. "Doesn't matter now. It never really mattered."

"It mattered to him," her companion says firmly.

"Perhaps. But it terms of practicality it changed nothing. I know why he never told me." Time has done nothing to dull these memories, and booted feet are forced to take a stumbling step back from the grave, a deep, sharp breath being drawn from the stagnant air. "He was afraid. Afraid of making me bind myself to him, afraid that I might come to pity him."

Terry chuckles lowly, and the sound is achingly familiar. "I don't think I've ever met anyone I pitied less."

"Or more," she adds. Terry might have imagined the tremble in her voice then. Might have. "I never pitied him," she says. "And though there was no ceremony I bound myself to him with a glad heart."

"There was never anyone else?"

There is a white flash in the darkness; a brief grin of what is almost triumph. She shakes her beautiful head. "No. And that's what I came to tell him. I thought if I could make it past a century, then I would have won." She kneels now, touching her forehead to the cold marble and conjuring the agonising sweetness of his touch from her memories. It is one of a few she cherishes, truly _cherishes_ enough to bear into eternity. "Do you hear me?" she asks, and Terry knows she is not speaking to him now.

He takes three steps back, giving the two almost-lovers their space. Back at the grave, the woman is whispering. "There was no one. There will never be anyone. That's why I'm here. To tell you that I told you so, and to tell you that _you were wrong_." She laughs slightly at that. Imagine, the Batman, wrong. Finally, she presses her lips to his name, lingeringly, uncaring of the chill of stone under her mouth. She's not really kissing the headstone. "I love you, Bruce," she tells him. "I will always love you."

This is the last time she will speak those words. She stands, bows respectfully to the two headstones beside his, and turns back to Terry. "I'm leaving now," she says. "I don't think I'll be coming back."

The second Batman nods solemnly, is surprised when she pulls him into a fierce hug. A little too fierce, and he coughs to let her know. She takes the hint, and lets go immediately. "Take care of your family," she says.

"I will," he replies, eyes going automatically to the spot beside Bruce that he's hoping to be buried in one day. Not too soon though.

"Goodbye, Terry." She kisses his forehead, looks at the grace once more, then fades into the sky.

For a moment, watching her go, it's like Bruce is speaking through him. So he says what the old man wants him to. "Goodbye, Princess."

**A/N: Told you it wasn't happy, but it's been revolving around my head all day. Review please!**


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